Mr. Speaker, today is World No Tobacco Day.
I rise today to speak on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day. Youth smoking rates in Canada have increased by 25% since 1991 and recent figures show that half a million Canadian teenagers are daily smokers.
Tobacco kills approximately 3.5 million people a year worldwide, 10,000 per day. This afternoon the Canadian Society for International Health and the Pan American Health Organization will be hosting a public forum on Parliament Hill to discuss the nicotine issue and new approaches to cessation.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the panellists: David Sweanor, senior legal counsel for the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, Dr. Andrew Pipe and Dr. Robert Reid from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, and Dr. Mark Taylor, President of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. I would also like to thank Janet Hatcher Roberts, the executive director of the Canadian Society for International Health, and Maureen Johnson, also of CSIH, for their help.
This is not just a Liberal issue, a government issue or even a Canadian issue. This is a world problem and I hope that I can count on all of my colleagues for their help.